Hurtigruten History

Learn more about the proud history of Hurtigruten, The Norwegian Coastal Express

Every evening of the year a liner leaves Bergen in southwest Norway on an 11-day journey which will take her up the shore far beyond the Arctic Circle and very close the Russian border at the iron ore mining town of Kirkenes. While sailing she will visit 35 different ports and cover a length of close on 2,500 nautical miles.  In summer she sails in almost constant daylight; in midwinter much of the journey is realized in darkness or varying shades of twilight.

 
The Hurtigrute Ship Sirius, 1894-1895

Hurtigruten – the Coastal Express – is still, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, very much part of the scene on Norway’s Riksvei Nº. 1 – the Hovedleia or inshore shipping route. Road links along the coast are still broken up by time-consuming fjord crossings, even though over the past few decades new bridges and costly undersea tunnels have been built.

The Hurtigrute Ship Richard With, 1909-1941 

The Hurtigrute of today still performs similar functions to those it did a century ago, carrying cargo and passengers (mail no longer, sadly) between one port and another, and between the south and the north of the country. In spite of wildly exaggerated claims in holiday magazines and the travel sections of newspapers, it is not a newly-discovered tourist attraction, although now as never before round-trip passengers are its life-blood. Visitors to Norway have been using it and its predecessor services ever since the 1830s. Then as now it offers the traveler from abroad a unique insight into daily life on the Long Coast – an insight which the insular worlds of the touring coach or the cruise liner could never offer.
 
The operating statistics of the Hurtigrute are remarkable. In the early 1980s each of the eleven vessels operating the service did between 29 and 32 round trips yearly, sailing around 75,000 nautical miles, while the fleet as a whole covered a distance not far short of a million miles or the equivalent of 36 times round the Equator each year. The situation nowadays is a little different since several members of the fleet are at any given time cruising elsewhere in the world. Mechanical problems – sometimes rather more disruptive in their consequences on todays high-tech ships than on the steamers of a century ago - frequently have to be dealt with and resolved en route. Groundings and collisions, even with the latest navigational aids on board rarely occur. The changeable, erratic weather is always the number one enemy. Hurtigrute operating circumstances are far from easy.

The Hurtigrute Ship Jupiter in Bergen

Starting with the 1980s, the role of Hurtigruten altered; operating subsidies were slowly phased out and the operators put more importance on tourism. New, larger and more comfortable ships were introduced, with attention given to jacuzzis, bars, restaurants and other comforts. However, Hurtigruten still serves important commuter and cargo needs, and operates 365 days a year.
The last two independent shipping companies, Ofotens og Vesteraalens Dampskibsselskab (OVDS) and Troms Fylkes Dampskibsselskap (TFDS), merged on 1 March 2006 and changed their name to Hurtigruten Group (Hurtigruten ASA from April 2007). Besides the traditional coastal voyage, the new company also operates ferries and high-speed regional express ships in Norway, as well as cruises around Greenland, South America and the Antarctica.

Hurtigruten Articles:

Introduction

Ships

Ports

History